A belated Review of Jonathan Ames' "The Extra Man."

The Extra Man by Jonathan Ames
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the hell out of this book, but I failed to review it before returning it to the library. Alas, this Jonathan Ames...all right, let's call it a classic...is by far one of the funniest books I've read all year. As my recent reading of My Less than Secret Life informs me, this book is not far from the embarrassing truth of Ames' reality. His character is a young man who fancies himself as a young Gentleman in the tradition of an F. Scott Fitzgerald character. He moves to New York City in the early 90's with a roommate who is easily 3 times his age, though his real age is kept a mystery to the young man. The old man spends his days dancing to old records and his nights being taken out by even older ladies. They use him as an "extra man," a man to escort them out to the theater and dinner and the like. It is via this route and some very clever workarounds that the man is able to experience the finer things in life without actually having any money to spend on them.
The young man learns his ways, while living his own somewhat shameful secret life, filled with illicit encounters with prostitutes and transsexuals. It is a life he keeps from the old man even while he grows to love him as a friend and a mentor. It's kind of sweet in a very ridiculous way. It is what one might now call a "Bromance."
As with everything I've read from Ames so far, I laughed my ass off the whole time. I believe Ames is in the category of "love him or hate him." I have already written before about admiring his honesty. The fact that he can get so detailed about the things that he writes about, even when they come off as embarrassing, humbles me as a writer. There are stories and things that I do not tell because I do not have it in me to bear my soul the way he does. I believe he is a stronger writer for doing so. The Extra Man is a great place for anyone to start to see if they agree.

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A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer. A review.

A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer by Scott Andrew Selby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A relatively brief (262 pages) but fascinating true story of a not-very-well-known piece of Nazi history: the story of Paul Ogorzow, a railroad employee who derived pleasure from the killing of women during the late thirties/early forties in the heart of Berlin and the Nazi empire. His preferred M.O : bashing women over the head with a heavy object on the S-Bahn train, then throwing their bodies off in between stops. This all happened in darkness under the cover of the government enforced blackout (a way to make it hard for enemy planes to find their targets at night).
On his trail is Inspector Wilhelm Ludke. While nominally a Nazi party member, he actually feels a deep commitment to law and order, and is frustrated by the lack of help he gets from the upper reaches of the Party, who do not wish to appear weak due to the presence of a serial killer in their midst….
It is a fascinating story, against the backdrop of wartime Berlin during the Nazi regime. While the evil and “ethically challenged” leaders are busy trying to dominate the world, there were still normal everyday people who were trying to get back and forth to work, who live in fear due to the actions of one man wielding a blunt object, invisible in the darkness. While the Holocaust and Nazism represented a systemic evil, the personal level at which Ozgorow’s actions affect regular people are no less frightening and evil.
If the author ever gets bogged down in descriptions and details (why it is called the S-Bahn, the purpose of blackouts, etc.), it is only briefly. How Ozgorow is ultimately caught proves to be a breathtaking narrative, and a tribute to those who choose law and justice even when it was not the first priority of the Reich.


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My Less Than Secret Life: A review

My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays by Jonathan Ames
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ames’ best and worst quality is his honesty. His absolute, brutal, not-afraid-to-embarrass-himself honesty. He vocalizes thoughts that most of us keep private, which probably should be kept private. While some may look at his many adventures with transvestites/transsexuals and his stories about pooping and nose picking and masturbation as being somewhat vulgar and unnecessary, at least you can say that he is not full of shit. He is far too open to be considered shady or dishonest.
And for me, at least, this works.
My Less than Secret Life is a compilation of much of his late ‘90s/early 2000’s work. It’s a hodgepodge of essays, short stories, letters, what have you, that serve as a very complete (some might think overly complete) picture of the author as a middle aged man.
As with any such compilation, some of it works and some of it doesn’t. I believe the two strongest pieces are the one about how two chapters of his novel were stolen in an elaborate plot by a misguided friend, and the one about visiting a porno movie set with his father. Both stories are riveting, wickedly funny accounts of things that just don’t happen to most people.
In fact, these things and many other things he writes about, including his training for and participating in a boxing match with a stage performer, just don’t happen to anyone. Yet these things happen to Ames on a regular basis. And for the most part, he welcomes the adventure. Because as a true creative non-fiction writer, in the tradition of hunter Thompson and Hemingway, Ames throws himself into the story, to hilarious effect.
I loved most everything about this book: I can’t even count the number of times I laughed out loud at something I’d read. This is a great lead-in to Ames’ fiction (read The Extra Man!), which, as this book shows, isn’t very far from the truth.
#JonathanAmes





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